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Agree! The message is try to design the syllabus to capture the complexity of economics, as closer as possible to the nuances of real world; instead of teaching simple, beautiful, mathematical model which based on unreal assumptions.

Macroeconomics should evolve from a linear one-dimensional mathematical conceptions into a multidimensional probability theory of adjustable theory to properly apprehend the ongoing complex realities. The economic agents and the invisible hand could only work if probability is taken in its full comprehension!

Lets start with a definition from Investopedia - Investopedia explains Microeconomics: "The field of economics is broken down into two distinct areas of study: microeconomics and macroeconomics. Microeconomics looks at the smaller picture and focuses more on basic theories of supply and demand and how individual businesses decide how much of something to produce and how much to charge for it. People who have any desire to start their own business or who want to learn the rationale behind the pricing of particular products and services would be more interested in this area.

Macroeconomics, on the other hand, looks at the big picture (hence "macro"). It focuses on the national economy as a whole and provides a basic knowledge of how things work in the business world. For example, people who study this branch of economics would be able to interpret the latest Gross Domestic Product figures or explain why a 6% rate of unemployment is not necessarily a bad thing. Thus, for an overall perspective of how the entire economy works, you need to have an understanding of economics at both the micro and macro levels."

If you don't agree on a definition then that is a profound source of trouble. The subject is vast, the nuances overwhelming, the potential for ideological, geopolitical, geographic anomalies and schisms are huge.

Professor Seabright, if you think you can get a million strong herd of economists all heading in the same direction you are quite frankly P1$$1ng in the wind.

You are a very brave man doomed to failure.

You should develop several theories based on empirical analysis for particular markets, countries, regimes and levels of corruption.

I notice that Professor Seabright ignores the relatively simple models of microeconomic change that are used by economics' dis-owned daughter-disciplines of strategy and management. These are the models of market evolution popularly associated with Schumpeter but also, more rigorously, with Richard Nelson & Sidney Winter, and the research programs that have emerged from these literatures. All the complex and messy strands cited by Seabright relate to the discovery of equilibria rather than the process of economic change that drives capitalism from day to day and from decade to decade.
It is this disjunction rather than that of the complexity of 'real' microeconomics that has driven university economics courses into irrelevance. Managers can achieve an MBA with only a single 12 week introductory microeconomics and macroeconomics. Management and accountancy degrees can require as little as two economics subjects, but a larger number of business strategy, human resource management, finance (where the basics of efficient markets theory has to be taught - thus the 2008 crisis) are required.
I'd put current microeconomics teaching back to Samuelson's first textbook, early 1950s. I've taught from current textbooks that barely differ from Samuelson's 4th edition that I studied in 1962!
Is economics driving itself further into irrelevance?

Your article is basically the description of my microeconomics classes, I felt just like that. But nonetheless, I believe that a most effective change must happen in both professors and students attitude confronting this distance between model and reality.

Nor did I searched for how to apply those models, nor did my professor showed it.

Paul Seabright is indeed raising such an excellent point, which could be applied outside of academics as well; in the sphere of management of firms most managers have the more simple Arrow-Debreu model through which they see business problems, while the reality is governed by what the latest research papers are dealing with which they are never exposed to. So think of it, the complex nature of world's problems even in the highest of management echelons never go beyond the basics of micro-economics, while many of the decisions that they take directly or indirectly actually lead to serious consequences. The world is more non-linear than any model and our simplistic view to comprehend world's current problems and the limitations make most of the results appear as random walk. This probabilistic nature of outcomes is something that the world of business has found very difficult to grapple with.

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